Doggydaddy's Den: Doggy's Doghouse 12/30/18

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Logan is just like his Grampa!

I always read when I'm doing business!!!

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I had a wonderful birthday Sunday! My wife made me breakfast in bed,

Eggs over, cheese on top, bacon and toast!!

I got to watch all the football I wanted!

And my wife made me my favorite dessert, a Boston Crème Pie.

I want to thank everyone for their birthday wishes.

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Several Top 25 games Sunday and it's been a while but there were four upsets.

In a "not really an upset" upset, No. 21 Michigan State beat No. 16 Iowa at home 84-70 behind Nia Clouden's 27 points. Iowa had already lost 2 games this season including a lose to unranked but rising Florida State and a 34 point loss to Notre Dame. Not a signature win in their season to date. Michigan State had that big win against at the time No. 3 Oregon and only lost to now No. 9 North Carolina State. Add in the fact that MSU was home and it was not a big upset. But a really good win for Michigan State.

Unranked Central Michigan upset No. 24 Miami 90-80 in Miami. Not a big surprise as Miami was a little over-ranked at 24. In a good plug for the AAC and for their RPI, Tulane had beaten Central Michigan in their last game. Hey, the AAC needs all the help they can get.

No. 14 California had a UConn hangover and lost to Harvard at home after playing the Huskies so well the game before. The Golden Bears just couldn't hit a high enough percentage of shots. They had 23 offensive rebounds, but only shot 40%. Their defense was pretty weak as Harvard shot 53% from the field and 13-25 on threes to help them score 85 points. California took 13 more shots, outrebounded Harvard 46-25 and still lost.

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The fourth upset deserved it's own area in my blog. No. 17 Arizona State was upset by Arizona. Now, on it's surface, it's not a huge upset. Arizona had only one loss coming into this game and they were at home. But it's the final score and lousy play that stands out. The final was 51-39. Yes, only 90 points between them.

The winning team only scored 51 points. They were only able to put up 43 shots and shot 46.5%. Not terrible. But they were 1-8 on threes and had 7 assists and 15 turnovers. All of these stats would usually put a team on the losing side of the equation. But when the other team plays so badly, you can't even believe the numbers are real, well, you can win playing as poorly as Arizona did.

ASU was just pathetic in this game. Here are the hard numbers. 23.2% from the field, 4-23 on threes for 17.4%, 10 assists and 17 turnovers. Former UConn players Courtney Ekmark was 1-10 from the field and 1-8 on threes. Now, 39 points is the hardest number of all of them especially for a team ranked No. 17. So, because of all this, I am resurrecting the UGGY award!!!

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Just below being upset are games where ranked teams underperformed against a pretty weak opponent. We have a couple of those. And to no surprise, at least to me, it was by two SEC teams.

No. 25 South Carolina was able to slip by Furman, yes Furman, 66-53 using a 10-1 run to end the game. This Furman team lost to Kennesaw State and lost to Mississippi State by 65 points and Georgia by 23 points. I have a feeling that South Carolina will struggle to be .500 in the SEC. That would make them 16-12 for the regular season and needing at least 2 wins in the SEC tournament to make the NCAA's. Long way to go though. Maybe they can turn it around?

No. 10 Tennessee defeated Belmont 84-76 in a game that should not have been that close. Tennessee was leading 59-58 going into the fourth quarter and Belmont was actually up 66-65 with 5:27 left in the game. Tennessee put the game away from the free throw line over the last 3 minutes of the game. This is a Belmont team that lost to Toledo and a mediocre Clemson team. Tennessee hit 9 threes in the first half and missed all of their attempts in the second half. I just don't know what to make of this team.

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